LIVING IN THE GAP
Religious Life and the Call to Communion

Dennis J. Billy, C.Ss.R.

Religious Life and the Call to Communion
PAPERBACK; 109 PAGES; 2011
ISBN: 978-1-56548-392-7

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About this Book
We yearn for communion with one another because of God’s yearning for communion with us. Fr. Billy reminds us that communion, according to John Paul II’s Novo Millennio Ineunte, lies at the very heart of the Christian message.
Contemplating the other. Living in unity. Accepting each other as “gift.” Sharing each other’s burdens. Although such right relationship is meant to be practiced by everyone, the “spirituality of communion” has special significance for religious, since they are called to be “experts” in its daily practice.
Fr. Billy points to the striking benefits and authentic renewal that embracing a spirituality of communion can bring to the life of men and women religious and their communities. He offers companionship and concrete strategies for helping to help narrow the “gap” between the vision of what we desire to become and the reality of who we are.
Each chapter opens with an epigram about religious life and closes with a series of reflection questions.

Some Reviews:
“Many members of religious institutes will recognize themselves in the reflection of Father Billy, who offers a clear-eyed view of our struggles over the last four or five decades. The author avoids useless polemic preferring, instead, to situate religious life among the other vocations in the Church and indicates how religious can live their unique vocation in a spirit of communion. The book is an excellent tool for the initial and ongoing formation of religious women and men, as well as a reliable voice for all those who want to understand better how this religious life is to be lived today.”
Archbishop Joseph W. Tobin, C.Ss.R.
Secretary, Congregation for Institutes
of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life

“Religious life is not a naïve utopia but a commitment to live in the gap between vision and reality, the already and the not-yet, the place where human relationships are deepened in the midst of human frailties. This is a well-written and thought-provoking book which will raise questions for some and provide insight for many. Living in the Gap offers a wise and spiritual foundation for those seeking the pearl of great price.”
Sr. Ilia Delio, O.S.F.
Senior Fellow, Woodstock Theological Center

Living in the Gap is a profound little book that examines the role and meaning of religious life in our modern world. Those who choose to live a consecrated life are called to communion with God and to relationship with the human family. Dennis J. Billy, a Redemptorist and scholar, beautifully expresses how all men and women struggle to faithfully live the gap between vision and reality. In the six carefully written chapters Billy reflects on the essential topics of conversion, vows, community, virtue and perseverance in living an authentic Christian life. While written for religious, Living in the Gap is appropriate for any person seeking a deeper spiritual relationship with God … Each chapter includes questions for reflection, which facilitates group sharing or discussion. Recommended for spiritual renewal and personal growth.
John Leonard Berg
Catholic Library World

There are some very searching questions, [such as], “What would the world be like without your religious order?” … He asserts that those living in community must keep before themselves the example of the one perfect community, which is the Holy Trinity … there is much food for thought in this book … its readership should not be confined to community members, since we have here good teaching on the Christian life which is available to all. The universal call to holiness should affect us all, and this book could help us to realize its implications.
Martin SSFJ in Franciscan

About the author Dennis J. Billy, C.Ss.R.
Father Billy, a Redemptorist of the Baltimore Province, taught for more than twenty years at the Alphonsian Academy of Rome’s Pontifical Lateran University, reaching the rank of full (ordinary) professor. He is now scholar-in residence and holder of the John Cardinal Krol Chair of Moral Theology at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Overbrook, Pennsylvania. Father Billy is the author of numerous theological and spiritual books.